Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Jacques Ellul quotes

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief”
 
“(Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth”
 
 
“Prayer holds together the shattered fragments of the creation. It makes history possible.”
 
 
 
 
 Propaganda: And in what way are you controlled?
by Peter Farley

Notes from the most dangerous book around. We can all find ourselves somewhere in these words:

Jacques Ellul: Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes 1965 Alfred Knopf

...Propaganda ceases when simple dialogue begins ...  the individual never is considered as an individual, but always in terms of what he has in common with others ... Emotionalism, impulsiveness, excess, etc. - all these characteristics of the individual caught up in a mass are well known and very helpful to propaganda...
 
...The current flows through the canvasser (who is not a person speaking in his own name with his own arguments, but one segment of an administration, an organization, a collective movement); . . it must give the impression of being personal, for we must never forget that the mass is composed of individuals, and is in fact nothing but assembled individuals. . .in a group . . they pretend all the more to be "strong individuals." . . all modern propaganda profits from the structure of the mass, but exploits the individual's need for self-affirmation . . jointly, simultaneously . . this is the situation of the "lonely crowd."...

... the most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass...
...it (propaganda) can have practically no effect on individuals before that group has been fragmented...
11 ...the opposing faction must become negligible, or in any case cease to be vocal.

12 ...information itself becomes propaganda, or rather, wherever propaganda appears, there follows an inextricable confusion between propaganda and information. Amusements, distractions, or games can be instruments of propaganda...

13 Finally, propaganda will take over literature (present and past) and history, which must be rewritten according to propaganda's needs.

15 Direct propaganda, aimed at modifying opinions and attitudes, must be preceded by propaganda that is sociological in character, slow, general, seeking to create a climate, an atmosphere of favorable preliminary attitudes.?...

17 Propaganda must be continuous and lasting-continuous in that it must not leave any gaps, but must fill the citizen?s whole day and all his days (THE TRUMAN SHOW); lasting that it must function over a very long period of time...

18 Continuous propaganda exceeds the individual's capacities for attention or adaptation and thus his capabilities of resistance...

[ ... ]

149 Propaganda is a true remedy for loneliness.

153 Anxiety is perhaps the most widespread psychological trait in our society ... the propagandist must try to find the optimal degree of anxiety and tension.

180 ...propaganda seeks to induce action, adherence, and participation-with as little thought as possible...

196 ...The propagandist is not, and cannot be, "a believer"...

206 Problems are made simple. Goebbels wrote, "By simplifying the thoughts of the masses and reducing them to primitive patterns, propaganda was able to present the complex process of political and economic life in the simplest terms ... W e have taken matters previously available only to experts and a small number of specialists, and have carried them into the street and hammered them into the brain of the little man."...

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